Music fans in the U.S. streamed 164 billion songs in 2014, up 54% from 106 billion in 2013, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The report, released Jan. 2, also notes that album downloads decreased by 9% in the year and that individual track downloads decreased by 12%.

Added January 2, 2015 at 9:31 a.m.

OUR SOURCES

Music Downloads Plummet in U.S., but Sales of Vinyl Records and Streaming Surge

A total of 257 million albums were sold in the U.S. in 2014, with 106.5 million of them being digital downloads. Taylor Swift's "1989" was the best-selling album of the year at 3.66 million units. A total of 1.1 billion individual songs were downloaded in 2014.

Added January 2, 2015 at 9:33 a.m.

OUR SOURCES

Music Downloads Plummet in U.S., but Sales of Vinyl Records and Streaming Surge

In January 2014 Nielsen SoundScan noted that sales of individual music tracks declined in 2013 for the first time since the 2003 launch of the iTunes Store. Sales were down 5.7% in 2013. Sales of full albums were down 0.1% in 2013.

Shazam confirmed on Jan. 21 that it had raised $30 million at a valuation of $1 billion. The company, which is still not profitable, takes a small percentage whenever a user buys an identified store from digital music stores like iTunes.

66% of all people who stream music online say they won't pay for a premium account, according to an August 2014 survey from the Midia Research media and technology analysis firm. The survey notes that people are generally satisfied with free, ad-supported services like YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify, and don't see a need to pay.

Every new generation of music service steals from the last generation's customers. Apple stole Amazon's best CD buyers, and Spotify has now stolen those same customers from Apple — or at least the same sorts of people.
- Mark Mulligan, Midia Research

The Midia Research survey also notes that 25% of all people who stream music online now spend less on music downloads than they used to.